Fever 4 - DreamFever (13 page)

  The spear had been trickier. As we'd figured, Rowena was carrying it. I never
expected to be able to take it stealthily. I just wanted to take it and get out fast. And for
that--plus about a zillion other reasons--I'd needed Dani.

   I had her slam us both into Rowena at high speed. While I kept the old woman busy
trying to get untangled from me on the floor, Dani stayed in high-speed mode, patted
her down, snatched the spear from a pouch the old woman had sewn into her robes,
grabbed me again, and whizzed us both out.

   Rowena's shouts had roused the entire abbey. We'd fled into the night, followed by
cries of "Traitors, traitors!"

  "We can never go back to the abbey, Mac." Dani looked simultaneously exhilarated
and as young and lost as I'd ever seen her. I remembered being a teenager and didn't
envy her a bit. Emotions ran so high and changed so quickly, it was hard to know which
end was up.

  I laughed. "Oh, we're going back, Dani. I need things there." Answers. Lots of them.
Tomorrow I would begin working on how to get into the Forbidden Libraries and
putting together my own troops of sidhe-seers.

  "They'll never take us back, Mac. We ganged up and defied Rowena. We're outcasts.
Forever." She sounded as miserable as she did proud.

   "Trust me, Dani. I've got a plan." I'd been fleshing it out while I was tracking Shades
and driving them outside. "They'll take us back. I promise." More important, I planned
to take them with me. But I needed to make a big statement first. I needed to show them
how it could be. I knew what the other sidhe-seers wanted the most and I could give it
to them, and that was the key to motivating any pack to follow a leader. Standing in the
hall while they voted, I'd felt it in my blood. They were sick to death of menial tasks, of
being corralled and ordered about, tired of seeing the world fall apart on their watch
while they did the only thing Rowena would let them do: gather what survivors they
could find and teach them to do what the pathetic and defeated did--hide.

  What they wanted most of all was to hunt and kill Fae. And why wouldn't they?
They'd been born to do it!

   During her time as Grand Mistress, Rowena had tried to civilize them, circumscribe
them, organize them, but she'd only been polishing their surfaces, changing nothing
where it counted, because deep inside every sidhe-seer was a hunter, bred to kill Fae,
stalking, snarling, waiting with bated breath for the opportunity to do it. Beneath the
skin of even the most timid sidhe-seer was a different creature entirely. Case in point?
See pink Mac go black.

  I was going to invite them out to play.

  I was going to give them the opportunity they'd been jonesing for, show them what
we could do together. Having only two weapons wasn't the most desirable situation, but
there were ways to work with it. If I could motivate five hundred sidhe-seers to fight
and capture as many non-sifting Fae as possible, Dani and I could focus solely on

killing them, instead of having to waste time hunting them ourselves. On our own, Dani
and I might be able to take out a hundred a night, but if the Fae had already been
captured and rounded up, we could kill a thousand in a few hours! Maybe more. And
that was if every sidhe-seer at the abbey managed to find and capture only two apiece!

   There was no doubt that Dani and I would be better than the other sidhe-seers at
capturing the Fae and that pretty much any sidhe-seer could stab them, but I was never
letting my spear go again. I would tell the other sidhe-seers the same thing I'd told
Dani: We needed to keep the weapons because we were the only two who could protect
them if the Seelie came for them. I would never let any of them know what I knew: that
V'lane could take both weapons away from us at any time if he felt like it.

   I shoved that thought away and turned to another I was still mulling over. If we began
feeding Unseelie flesh to normal humans, we could turn every man, woman, and child
into a fighter and arm them with the ability to defend themselves. It sickened me to
think of billions out there that couldn't even see the Shades.

  "Are the Unseelie projecting glamour?" I asked Dani. "I mean, are they making
themselves invisible to the average human?"

   She shook her head. "V'lane says concealment is the Seelie way of things. He says
Unseelie get off on human fear. They ain't hiding nothing. The Shades are still invisible
to normal folks `cause that's their natural state, but people can see all the other castes,
far as we know."

   So, other humans could see their death coming, unless it was by Shade. They just
couldn't do anything about it. But if they were fed Unseelie, they would gain
superstrength, like Malluc�, Derek O'Bannion, Fiona, and Jayne, and be able to fight
back. We could capture far greater numbers, and wouldn't it be worth it, even if it
changed those who ate it on some fundamental level? I wasn't sure exactly what
changes it caused or how long-term they might be, but I didn't feel worse for it. Fear of
my own spear had been the greatest drawback. Wasn't the survival of our race and our
world the most important thing, no matter the means by which it was accomplished? In
a "Your Pure Human Genes" or "Your Life" contest, I'd come down firmly every time
on the side of life.

  "IFP, Mac!" Dani exclaimed. "Dead ahead!"

   I veered sharply, skidding around it. It was a small one, the circumference of a
carnival calliope. We'd seen three so far. She'd laughed when I told her what I'd
christened them. They were easier to see at night. When headlights hit them, they
shimmered with thousands of what looked like tiny dust motes dancing on the air. The
first--the swamp I'd driven through earlier today--had shimmered pale green; the last
two had been silvery. I wondered if their color had anything to do with the landscape
inside and what dangers they held, if perhaps similar colors came from similar parts of
Fae realms. I made a mental note to begin recording as much as I could about them in
my journal. I thought I might organize scouts. Pick half a dozen and send them out to
learn everything they could about the Interdimensional Fairy Potholes. Were they gates
to Faery? Was there some way to use them to our advantage?

  It was quarter to eleven by the time we arrived in Dublin. We worked our way past
abandoned wrecked cars, parked near Temple Bar, and got out, MacHalos blazing,
weapons in hand.

  My sidhe-seer senses were picking up a tremendous number of Fae in the city. I
sensed thousands of them, spread out in all directions. Why so many? The city was
eerily quiet and appeared to be devoid of human life. Wouldn't Unseelie want to be
wherever the most humans were gathered? It didn't seem as if any were left here at all.

  "Are you sensing a ton of Fae, Dani?" I asked.

   "Uh-huh. S'part of the reason I kept coming in. Looking for you and trying to figure
out what was going on. Was kinda freaky alone, though. I think Dublin's, like, their
official headquarters or something."

  I stared into the shadows, searching the night for Shades, glancing from dark alley to
darker lane.

  Dani didn't miss it. "I think most of `em are gone, Mac. Last time I saw one of the
creepy fecks in here was more than a month ago, and it was a really small one. I think
they ate their way out and just kept going. Only ones I see anymore are in the abbey
with us."

  I was still keeping my MacHalo on. She made no move to take hers off, either.
"Where's the boarded-up bar you said you saw?" We'd start there. Kill everything that
was Fae. Try knocking sense into any humans stupid enough to be found there. "You
know what to do if we get surrounded," I reminded her.

  "Grab you and get out fast," she said with a grin. "Don't worry, Mac. I got your
back."

Like I said: It was one of those perfect moments. We fought for hours, racking up the
kills. With each Unseelie we "exterminated," I felt stronger, more charged, more
determined to track and destroy the last one, even if it took until my dying breath.

  Dani and I punched and stabbed and sliced our way down the dark Dublin streets.
Drunk on our own sheer kick-ass glory, we made up a song that would one day become
the anthem of sidhe-seers around the world. But we didn't know that. We only knew
that shouting it kept us pumped up, feeling invincible.

We're taking back the night!

Let there be light.

We're not afraid anymore.

You took what was mine

And now it's time

For you and me to settle the score

We're taking back the night!

  "Shh!" Dani suddenly hissed.

  I froze, mid-lyric and mid-stab, dying Rhino-boy stuck on my spear, tusked mouth
working soundlessly.

  I couldn't hear a thing, but I don't have heightened senses unless I've eaten Unseelie,
and thanks but no. I'll survive with what gifts I have.

  "Pull your spear out," she whispered.

  I did, and the next thing I knew, I was being whizzed down alleys so fast and jerkily
that I wanted to puke. I will never understand how Dani can stand moving like she does.

  Then we were still and she was pointing. "Look up, Mac!"

  I looked, and shivered. With all the Fae in the city, I'd not been able to distinguish
castes. I harbored a special hatred for this one: Unseelie Hunters.

   Since time immemorial, they have hunted and killed sidhe-seers. Enforcers of Fae
law and punishment, mercenary to the core, they work for whoever pays them with
whatever it is they want most at the moment. They flip sides constantly. They have
telepathic abilities and can get inside your skull and twist you up on yourself. To make
matters worse, they chill you to the bone and look like the devil himself, come for your
soul.

   Two enormous Hunters were circling in the sky, a few blocks from the river Liffey.
Twice the size of any I'd seen in the past, they were blacker than night, with great
leathery wings, forked tails, talons as long as my spear, and eyes that blazed like
furnaces from hell. They were clawing air, talons forward, screaming at something in
the streets the way I imagined dragons must scream, churning black ice crystals into the
air with every flap of those deadly black sails.

  "D'ya fecking believe it?" Dani breathed. "Are they nuts?"

  She didn't mean the Hunters. She meant whoever was down in the streets, shooting at
them.

  I could see holes being punched in their great wings and healing almost instantly,
bullets dropping to the street below. I could hear the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic gunfire.

  It was doing nothing much but pissing them off. A lot.

  Whoever was doing it was going to get themselves killed!

   I looked at Dani, and she nodded. "Better go save their ass," she agreed, and reached
for me.

    I stepped back. "Thanks, but it's only a few blocks. I'll walk."

    I turned.

   She grabbed my shoulder and we were there in a heartbeat. I was really going to have
to loot a drugstore for Dramamine, because when she let me go again, I could only
stand bent over, battling the overwhelming urge to puke on a pair of shiny black shoes.